On anniversary, the worth of Iraq War is still debated

War dragged on for the next eight years and ended quietly in December 2011 when the last U.S. convoy rolled across the Kuwaiti border.

East Tennesseans took part from the first moment to the last. They watched the bombs fall on television, listened to the speeches, signed enlistment papers, sorted care packages for the troops, marched in peace rallies, walked foot patrols in the dust, led convoys down the desert highways and fought, bled and died.

Those who survived came home to a country where less than one percent of the population has served in the military and where the average resident knows the names of the latest "American Idol" contestants better than the names on a casualty list.

Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines served repeat tours in the country they came to know as "the sandbox," missing months and years of their family's lives. Husbands, wives, parents and children of National Guardsmen and reservists learned the new math of the military's five-year deployment cycle, watching the calendar and wondering how many times they'd have to say goodbye.

East Tennesseans helped supervise the first free elections in Iraq's history, guarded the National Assembly, flew missions, built schools and hospitals, and brought electricity and clean water to villages. Most came home proud of their service.

Yet a decade after the war began, they — like most Americans — still can't agree on why they fought, what the war accomplished and whether the sacrifice was worth the cost. Polls over the years consistently show at least half of all respondents see the war as a mistake.

Veterans often complain they lacked the public support and government commitment seen in World War II, when the country united in sacrifice against a common enemy. Opponents of the war insist it began with a lie — the still-unproven accusations that dictator Saddam Hussein was hoarding weapons of mass destruction — and focused more on private profit than public good at the expense of American lives.

"From an American perspective, I think it is safe to say that the legacy of the war is and will be contested — intensely debated — with often strikingly varying evaluations," said Vejas Liulevicius, a professor of history and director of the Center for the Study of War and Society at the University of Tennessee. "I personally as a historian researched the First World War, and even 100 years after that event, historians are still fiercely arguing about what caused that war and what its effects were."

Whatever the academic verdict, most who took part will make up their minds based on what they saw and heard for themselves — whether in combat, in support, in opposition or on the homefront. This series tells the story of the Iraq conflict through the eyes of a handful of East Tennesseans, some of whom still struggle to shake off the dust of war.